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HN Help: I'm lost

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Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#151

Post by abstractbill »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
sleepingbot wrote: post #28

I'm 32 and work from home. 2 daughters. A wife who works with me. We both have a background in journalism, and she was making some good money when working for big TV. We decided to marry and try to create a site by ourselves. We believe in simple life and try to be frugal. Downshifting. No more commutes and stupid meetings; no more work on something we don't believe in. We have spent more money than we got in return.…

Hey sleepingbot, mail me your URL, I'll see if I can get you some more traffic if you want.

jacquesm, I just wanted to say, every one of your comments on this thread has been awesome.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#152

Post by azanar »

nzmsv wrote: post #142
ganley wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His family might disagree.

This is exactly what most guys out there are conditioned to think. "I must be a provider". It's stupid. Yes, make sure your kids aren't starving. No, they don't need a new videogame every week. Kids aren't as dumb as adults think they are. Treat them with respect, explain things to them, and they will understand. Treat them as dumb consumers, and what do you get?

Kids aren't as dumb as adults think they are.

It's more a matter of perceived fragility, both in the physical sense (safety hysteria) and the emotional and psychological sense (provider hysteria). This is constantly reinforced by other people behaving as though their children are fragile, and falling into the hysteria themselves.

No one wants to be at the bottom of this pile. It would be the same, in a coarse sense, as being at the bottom of the pile in a high school or in a clique of society wifes. Social ostracism, harassment with and by child protective services, and honest to goodness psychological damage of everyone involves can result from such petty bullshit. That you have to deal with such pettiness is a sign not that you should try to win harder, but that perhaps you should just stop playing the game.

In all of this squabbling, it is possible that, in an absolute sense, the child's life could be awesome. They could be comfortable, psychologically stable, and totally happy with life. But it doesn't matter, because all of this social in-fighting is a local phenomena, and being on the bottom in any locality makes you a "bad parent" almost by axiom.

BTW, not arguing at you so much as using your thoughts as a basis for my own. :-)

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#153

Post by azanar »

Schtarflucz wrote: post #21
noonespecial wrote: post #6

I'm posting this as a separate comment, not because I think that it particularly applies to your situation, but because it is good advice in the general case. If you should happen to feel, "I am utterly unhappy with my life" at any time, it might not hurt to at least darken the door of a trusted mental health professional just to be sure that there is not a clinical element to your feelings of malaise as well as circ…

There's also potentially some pride to swallow, but it's badly placed pride in the first place. The life-prevalence of perfect mental health is near zero. Gender and race discrimination have mostly been tackled, sexual orientation is on it's way. Mental disorders will be the next milestone IMO. All the best to the lost sheep :-)

There's also potentially some pride to swallow, but it's badly placed pride in the first place. The life-prevalence of perfect mental health is near zero.

It's not just a matter of pride; for my sake is a certain amount of skepticism in what all has been pathologized. Regardless of what motives, or who's, you might believe is a result of this, we seem hasty in pinning on conditions and prescribing meds. That behaviors may be off the norm seems a priori evidence that they are bad behaviors, and need to be corrected, and our triggering deviation from the norm seems to be narrowing. But then, this could be because I tend to become friends with all of the outliers, and I have a sampling bias. :-)

I have thought about chatting with one or two mental professionals myself, but more out of a sense of curiosity than a sense that I need to be chemically renormalized. I'd like to first figure out what I might potentially be diagnosed with, and then begin the much more interesting discussion of where it becomes a problem, and whether it matters as more than just a label I could potentially exploit for preferential treatment.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#155

Post by shimon »

duh wrote: post #134
greyman wrote: post #25

I am probably not a typical HN reader, but full-time "normal" employment works for me. I do software engineering and coding for 8 hours, then I go home, where I see my child, and there is a paycheck every month. So the advice I can give is - find another programming job, which is closer to your home, and chances are your boss will be better. That can solve the problem with money, boss, and time for your child. Regard…

> but full-time "normal" employment works for me Never forget that someone else's ambition is what allows for your relative stability.

That's a cruel way to look at it. If the guy is more interested in spending time with his family than working, and he's able to find someone who values his 8 hours enough to provide stable employment, then he's found a working arrangement that suits his values. As long as he believes in those values -- and isn't just accepting them by societal default -- there's no reason he should feel guilty.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#156

Post by roqetman »

I was in a similar situation; while I can't blame it all on my job, but it was the complacency that got me. I ended up separated from my wife and seeing my kids only a few days a week. When you feel like that do something about it. But speak to your family, prepare them for a while where they will have to live financially reduced and then make a change. Change is the first order of the universe, resistance to it will bite you in the end; embrace it and ride the wave instead.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#157

Post by jimbokun »

plinkplonk wrote: post #118
cynicalkane wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shudder at the thought of HN turning into Slashdot, where know-it-alls feel the need to hijack any genuine religious feeling or discussion by injecting the latest anti-religion meme picked up from the intertubes. As of this writing the grandparent is voted down, so maybe the change is already happening. But I felt the grandparent was at least a good faith attempt toward something readable and interesting, whereas t…

""I shudder at the thought of HN turning into Slashdot, where know-it-alls feel the need to hijack any genuine religious feeling or discussion by injecting the latest anti-religion meme picked up from the intertubes." And I shudder at the thought of HN turning into a place where appeals for advice are met by "Turn to $Diety, who watcheth over us all". That something may be believed with high conviction is not a measu…

"But that is the point. HN isn't the place for religious discussion or proselytizing, no matter how heartfelt or (subjectively) genuine the belief in its tenets is."

You keep saying this, but on what authority?

(I honestly can't seem to find the site discussion guidelines, is there such a thing?)

Has religious discussion been permanently banned on HN? This discussion naturally led in to questions about "the meaning of it all," and it is pretty much impossible for a religious person to honestly address those questions without invoking their religion at some point.

"I have my beliefs about the nature of the Universe (it is irrelevant whether I am agnostic, atheist or religious), but I don't proselytize them here or try to gain converts by pivoting off peoples misery."

I do think that some of the discussion has already veered into "beliefs about the universe" in some ways, and I do not see clearly where that line is drawn.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#158

Post by jimbokun »

plinkplonk wrote: post #131
sheats wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plinkplonk: My post was made for no other reason but to answer lostsheep's honest questions with the only honest answer I have. I sincerely apologize for "polluting HN" with my honest thoughts. If I had seen that he added an email address to his account I would have just emailed him since I know most people here don't appreciate religious discussions.

"My post was made for no other reason but to answer lostsheep's honest questions with the only honest answer I have. " I never questioned the strength of your conviction in your beliefs, just the appropriateness of expressing them here . My post could have been less strongly worded, though. I apologize unreservedly for any offense caused by the sharpness of my tone. " If I had seen that he added an email address to h…

Yea, I do see your point, but I reacted to the harshness of your tone. Minus the sharpness of how you expressed it, I mostly agree with the content of what you expressed.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#159

Post by azanar »

caffeine wrote: post #139

You know me because of code I've written, books I've published, and my contributions here .... I'm in my early 40s, I've worked for start-ups and big companies. I made a little bit of money in the early 2000s which helped pay off a bit of mortgage. I have a family that depends on me financially. I'm in my early 20s, and I'm just starting graduate school. I think you're exactly who I'm aiming to be in 20 years. So it…

This has made it very clear that, for me, happiness is a fundamentally internal thing. Your outside circumstances (within reason) have only marginal effects on happiness.

I agree with your take on happiness; it is fundamentally a matter of frame of mind.

However, the inputs to one's frame of mind evaluates can have a significant effect on happiness. It depends partly on how your brain was/is wired, and a significant amount on deciding which inputs to take seriously and how to relatively weight them.

I haven't spent a full week at a strength in quiet deep uninterrupted thought, but I probably do over the course of a year or two (approximately, I don't really keep track of time when I'm thinking). Part of this thinking is looking into my frame of mind, seeing how things are wired together based on snap judgments I've made in the past, and seeing if there are places where I am weighting things wrong, or even places where I should just start discarding input entirely. I guess, in a sense, you could say I'm performing back-propagation on my mind. :-)

kids have a way of totally ignoring the bullshit they're supposed to see, and just seeing instead.

My wife is the same way, and it is absolutely wonderful. She's a great source of insight when my frequent introspection runs into a difficult, deep problem. That she does the same sort of mental self-analysis often means she and I have non-overlapping insights about things. It helps me spend less time in a state of confusion.

Really good advice overall, though. Kudos.

Re: HN Help: I'm lost

#160

Post by jimbokun »

I can relate to what you are going through, and feel like I'm going through something similar.

The main difference is that I've tried a couple things to change course, and have met with some failures already. This has been discouraging, and I think I need to step back and re-assess some more. Some of the discouragement I feel is due to some misplaced priorities, I'm starting to realize. I should value time with my family, health, and just appreciating what life has to offer more than some outward notions of "success." I'm not the best in the world at what I do to make money, and I'm definitely better than some other people, and that's OK. But it is not the only important part of who I am. My wife has been trying to point this out to me, and it is slowly starting to sink in.

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